(Illy is taking notes for the composition of his future epic poem)

vignettes: tell us a stereotype about your people, faith, species, or vocation, culture that you resent:   Rajiv: yazabai -- there's regional variation in accent , harsher and shorter noises in it , came off more agressive when rajiv went to school, put off other people with his voice. hotheaded / aggressive stereotype, rooted in linguistic difference   Pet: doesnt like to think about time before, pet remembers being bullied for memorization failures, responding by shoving people, getting in trouble. physical response was looked down on , but emotional/verbal bullying, Pet was not defended from.   Illy: resents the prescriptive sunner norms, enlightenment packages, the fast track to political leadership. but also used to being part of dominant culture/species  

whole town is looking at the sky watching their floralia balloons fly away, inevitably they saw us light up with diadem-esque brilliance, o fuk o fuk o fuk   Pet trying to push diadem back into bag, it's magnetized to the floor almost, hard to roll now. DC 3, very dificult , shockingly somehow gets it back into the bag, once it's in bag it's no longer magnetically attached to ship, glowing also stops. we glowed for longer than a few seconds, shorter than a minute   Pet gets an extra blanket to try to wrap up diadem with.   zuni went with niyol and rajiv     harumi and xyla, and safina , suddenly ship lights up,   what do i know about harumi's politics? she isn't very forthcoming, but she's pretty progressive, free thinker, critical, maintains corporate facade,   im coming clean with harumi cuz theres a police airship coming after us tlai is nation pauhui is local people , illy is explaining the stakes to harumi, this significant magical thing but also political consequences   Zuni's first reaction is oh hell yes get my sword -- rather than "excuse me officer what's the problem" when the shatah small airship starts blowing its horn coming after us   -6 persuasion roll by Rajiv in trying to get Zuni to let him go, totally epic fail   weird juxtaposition of lord of the rings and scooby doo       Harumi: we are not beholden to shatah, we shall try to evade them if we can. let's get a heading. we open the blast doors in the hodgepodge room.   arming ourselves zuni pulls out a giant Scorpio (ballista)   illy goes to portside balcony with xyla and safina, rajiv goes looking for pet   Amaya sees Pet. Pet leaves blanket, abandons plan to switch blanket with backpack for diadem wrapping, Pet goes to join war party, finds Zuni lighting up like a crazy ballista vibrant blue badass "yes Pet it's time." (yes we're scared of Guard captain Zuni, but maybe we should be even more scared of her than we are)   takarut is the lead researcher, an engineer on the same level as zuni, Rajiv goes looking for a mana pool person that he can try to drain some mana from. takarut's deeply engaged in the work. doesnt really pay attention to people outside his department   takarut moshe , an Engineer involved in the research , technomancer really frustrated by how little progress he's making on the ship , rajiv gets him to try to bind some of the ships flight magic to him so that he can absorb some of the mana from it. Takarut moshe one of the lead researchers on the ship is idyllan, amathali people and faith? / puts a big religious symbol on Rajiv's back that binds some flying to him. symbol of the god of concord, god of community and fostering relationships among people. and because he's aiding someone else with the benefit of the ship, wasn't necessary, it's a prayer he put into it.    

rajiv heals himself for 3 with mana he gets from Takarut, it's been a wild day and he's learned a lot real quick.   we're mustered together as small airship approaches us, a little flying speedboat, not equipped for long distance. 12 people armed and aggressive. coming right at us. GE / rajiv /   mystery gang guards. we are scooby doo gang. guard captain zuni is guest star detective, nope, she's batman. Zuni has really baggy tunic, tactical belt covered in batteries , it's chemical energy storage. she opens up a battery little energy storage thing, ELECTROKINESIS , lightning belt hits enemy ship. people distracted by engine   we dont necessarily want to kill these people?? Rajiv nervous trying to figure out what to do   Rajiv flies up with his flyingness, ready to throw a spear, knows a flammable gas thing next to their open fire , tries to hit the gas in a spot that will slow them down or decrease altitude but not explode them. does 3 damage to balloon, little nick in the balloon   they pyrokinesis gather up the fire   i fire another arrow doing 6 damage to balloon, they'll lose 30 meters of altitude on their next turn "give us the diadem," "I dont know what , find it at dusk" (idk what youre talking about, go fuck off and die) .   Pet , lets the rest of the team know what's going on. Illy and Rajiv clipped their wings, theyre dropping.   what is our experience of combat? rajiv has never killed someone before, has Illy?   Zuni still fires the scorpio, not afraid of killing some sunners(oh god) Zuni scary, she did not hesitate , a ship blew a horn at us and she immediately grabbed the hand cannon, throws a big boulder at them , hits the fire thaumaturge , crushes their chest, very not pretty. o fuk   rajiv can attack and spell , add antimagic to spell, wants to hold attack to interrupt a spell , throws a spear with antimagic at audiokinesis caster. , who shapes sound, throws a pebble to then shape that clang in visible ripples to make it words. the ripples shatter , fades to a whisper   pyrokinete is down and theyre falling Rajiv flies back up i just yell down "shine bright, have a nice day!" little moko moko kid dances at them   pet gets/gives a hi five to Zuni, who is proud.   rajiv shocked by murder pet very enthusiastic , pro murder illy shaken by this wrecked dude, adrenaline , are zuni and harumi mad at us? Harumi shaken, Zuni is chill.   lol of course Zuni journals. she is a very introspective murderer. Harumi offers counseling. lmao.   niyol comforts rajiv. "first time seeing something like that?" he's very emotionally invested, never reserved. extra vulnerability here though, now he feels younger, more innocent, vulnerable "well I've hunted, but that's animals"   ship falling seems like ok.   Xyla and Safina, resolute, not necessarilyhappy , not overly shaken , some relief maybe, thankful for having allies. feeling vindicated. (remember they have allies hidden back in the area)   Pet perceiving Niyol: Niyol is reliving some trauma, remembering someone else's death that impacted him personally, someone who died traumatically. Niyol is shaken by the close brush with danger. threats to all our lives.   Pet concerned with Amaya, talking about wildforming her. she's up for anything, also very afraid of heights. trying to turn her into an irritating hummingbird? Amaya and Pet are dancing hummingbirds for a bit.   the kirin were said to fly. do we think this couldve been of kirin origin (SPELLED QIRIN)   Lepotzli was holy site // Tazul mine   xyla says ship doesnt look like qirin architecture, but not clear anyway.   safina, my mother learned from her mother from hers, who was achild when the puahui tribe was told they could no longer practice our faith. xyla quiet and contemplative, safina is determined. of course they never stopped practicing, we just stopped telling people , our villages were divided, dendori was split down the center, set us apart, stopped us from keeping in contact, dividing us, we found small symbols, cryptoTlai to express to others that they were tlai practitioners.   small horn of qirin symbol she's got. "we were told what we could and could not be. they took something that existed before us. there was nothing at tepotzli when we arrived, nothing to show us but we knew there was something there. but when they came they didnt feel anything. they didnt experience it." "i dont understand how they cant explain in something greater than themselves when it's so clearly put in front of them."   "I hadnt been able to see the statue until a year ago. when my mother passed i decided to come here and see the place where she had worked and labored. she'd always talked about the statue. Once I saw it I couldn't not be entranecd by it." Xyla and me are just eating this up. Illy fascinated by how much she cares, how passionate she is, her sense of purpose   light from these things that are mimicked, mirrored by sunners and their bullshit shiny shit , maybe we take it to another temple, maybe we learn what it's supposed to do, how it's supposed to be used.   she never took heirs , never claimed children, mayve shared eggs with communal creche. they just broke.   Rajiv shaken withdrawn into bed, illy showed up with safina and xyla to find clothes, eventually leave rajiv alone then amaya and pet come join illy safina and xyla, safina and xyla can sleep on couches   Pet has niyol's offer letter stowed away in his stuff we're heading kind of east, towardsish Chalco, maybe close to open ocean , gaining altitude   Pet goes to go get bag with the diadem, notices nothing unusual   we know of one other sunner on the ship, the navigator, miahuaki (mia) also mantlalli, crew was mostly hired on idylla   also in mess when pet brings diadem back,   Suten-rekh Nephyths, friend of aiyana historian is htere, short kahi woman, also chef huetu Suten Rekh is an engineer , very trelawney-esque ("boss trelawney") she takes the diadem and starts screwing with it, tries to take it to machine, i tell her to stop somehow manage to get it her away   sunburst diadem, probably called that , translated from some dead language   Pet gives zuni the shiny blue rock, she loves it and loves Pet.

next day conversations:   Zuni is not currently requiring regular shifts, but she is staying up   illy and rajiv and pet having tea in the morning. talking about death   rajiv never killed before illy maybe killed once, def been a part of some underground sunner fight clubs   rajiv: "alive one moment, untold the next" down in the cave in lepotzli , i tried to have a vision , but it was way more powerful than i was ready for, theres a lot ofhistroy there and its woven into the magic of the place. ""Ijoined this mission because i knew there were ancient technologies lost to time, i just needed to prove it. this is something more vast and powerful than i thought i could ever find, on the scale of the great endeavor" they, the qirin I think? i couldnt look back far enough , but someone long long before the pauhui people got there, craffted magic into the rocks so that stone would grow like plants in the field, growing the magic into it. and im not sure but i think its a byproduct, the bones you discard, i think they wanted to purify something of great magic down there, and casting out this antimagic into the stone purifying. i think that's failed, but i think the diadem is key to what they actually wanted there, antimagic was a byproduct."   hundreds of years he saw back, and in none of that time theyve been able to figure it out. the pauhui tried to research and investigate, but it's beyond us.   "ittihaza, the keeper of the words that are never spoken again, the god of the dead stories. not an aspect of death, but of all of the lost . , lost from dweath or cultural extinction or other forgettings . having seen all that, just a glimpse of how much wisdom has been lost, makes me hesitate even more to take even one persons wisdom out of the world. i havent killed anyone before, but i have ended someone, and it changed things, things were lost. i ended a person, a little girl who no longer exists." she wasnt right, there were a lot of people who loved her, and in trying to make her right, i hurt a lot of the people who loved her. I was her for a while. but she was never me. in a moment so yearning to not be her that i forgot the people who loved her, and things were lost." fiddling with engagement ring.   rajiv sharing with pet and illy. Pet raised on an atoll? might recognize engagement ring also. illy up in his feelings, thinking about his own family. Pet "iknow what its like to need so bad to be something else to just be." "when my parents passed, i had to hide."   it is our tradition that when ittihaza claims soemthing, it is gone from memory forever. but what I have learned is that it's not gone forever. but he holds on to it and saves it. yes the secrets of the qirin are lost to us, but not lost forever." ittihaza is the one furthest from the campfire that listens to the stories not told there   rajiv's sense of death loss, old wisdoms dead, great loss.   illy's sense of journey, new changes and decisions as part of this forward journey/growth   on the same page, we're expecting for violent confrontations but if we kill, we should do our best to carry on their wisdom, remember, we are now holders of their past.   rajiv's sense of purpose, of destiny leading us. the future's built to resemble the past, we have some destiny to reassemble this past knowledge   the yazabai are cautious of technology, theyve seen the imlpements of war and industry applied to necen acal and erase its history, time and time again its history is lost to ittihaza because of technology. they dont want to lose their history. "i dont want to lose the history either, that's my history."   Rajiv had friction with his tribe because he saw virtue in technology, then had a dream that scared him about ittihaza handing him some secret of technology, the sharing of which leading to ittihaza claiming all their history. more recently in hindsight, if the dream is a prophecy or a warning, it all starts with ittihaza giving up secrets of technology but recoverable. so let's go find out if that's true.   it curved slightly north while the diadem was going north, the ship followed the diadem? diadem as energy source?   on this heading, if we stay this way we'll cross into crazy maelstrom zone off other side of shatah. legends of giant sea serpents tall as mountains, we might be fucked , it's hurricane season also   Pet remembers whirlpools from where he was before on the ship. younger than 7, doesnt remember how he got to ship from there.   Pet's dad was like moshe, focused, studious, sciencey   Pet read to his parents , illy had to recite poetry to mom, etc   we have a nice little moment as it pans out there's storm ahead, shadow in the mist , serpentine shadows   upper and lower hodgepodge rooms. one is formally hodgepodge, the other is content hodgepodge. upper hodgepodge (hodgepodge elite) and lower hodgepodge